A Good Fit

My third, perhaps fourth, attempt to blog.

My problem has been choosing the title before figuring out what I would want to write. My first title, clearly not an inspired choice, has passed from memory. The second was chosen in an excess of wry humor combined with a passing bad mood, and the third was, I belatedly realized, a flagrant attempt to copy somebody else's elegant and whimsical style. I don't know what or how I'll write but I expect I wouldn't be able to support a steady diet of elegant and whimsical.

The overarching attitude of my days is gratitude. I'm a sufficiently happy old broad most of the time. Life is good. Husband and I are healthy, so far as I know. We live in a place like the one that was lost to me when I was a child and that I mourned for years. Husband and I have achieved many of our dreams, not least this place where it gets dark and, except for wild critters barking, howling, hooting, and domestic critters barking at the wild critters and yowling upstairs for company, quiet at night.

We've just come out of an ice storm that took out the electricity for a few days. The woodstove kept us comfortably warm and we had enough food and water. What else is needed, really? Books. I have books. And I have candles, which I held close to the pages, and so I could read well into the darkness. 8pm was about the limit before it was time for bed.

I found that going to bed with the chickens felt pretty good. Even doing the few chores that are possible without electricity was soothing in the flickering halflight of a candle across the room. And the quiet! Almost pure peace.

I guess if two middle-aged people who've known each other for thirty years can happily cohabitate for four days without electricity, they're solid enough.